It's been a while between stories, but now there's another one! Labor Senator Katy Gallagher to be ejected for still being a British citizen at the time of her election, though she'd taken steps to renounce prior to election.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-09/k ... nt/9742114

It's expected this may lead to a couple of other Labor people being bounced because the party won't want to fund more challenges. And a "South Australian Centre Alliance Member", Rebekha Sharkie, is seeking urgent legal advice because she's in a somewhat similar position.

Still think a new election and jail time for anyone who STILL stuffs it up is the way to go. End it once and for all!

Because laws are laws I guess. Plus it's easier to draw a hard line and enforce it than to try and discern subtle distinctions with this stuff. If we didn't enforce stuff like this we could hypothetically have a bunch of foreigners running our parliament with loyalties belonging primarily to their home country rather than Australia.

0 x

BorisBC wrote:Pro tip - if you have to spew in a car, spew down the (inside) front of your shirt. Trust me, it's a lot easier to clean spew off yourself than the interior of a car.

It's been a while between stories, but now there's another one! Labor Senator Katy Gallagher to be ejected for still being a British citizen at the time of her election, though she'd taken steps to renounce prior to election.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-09/k ... nt/9742114

It's expected this may lead to a couple of other Labor people being bounced because the party won't want to fund more challenges. And a "South Australian Centre Alliance Member", Rebekha Sharkie, is seeking urgent legal advice because she's in a somewhat similar position.

Still think a new election and jail time for anyone who STILL stuffs it up is the way to go. End it once and for all!

Jail time? LOL you can't be serious.... They weren't ruled invalid until the High Court made their decision, it would be charging them retroactively to then jail them as a result.

Still think a new election and jail time for anyone who STILL stuffs it up is the way to go. End it once and for all!

Jail time? LOL you can't be serious.... They weren't ruled invalid until the High Court made their decision, it would be charging them retroactively to then jail them as a result.

Please re-read the sentence. I said they should have a NEW ELECTION and anyone caught out AFTER THAT should be thrown in jail.

... although, they've already done the wrong thing. They're not inventing a law and applying it retroactively, it's an existing law they've been found to have contravened. The only issue is whether jail time is currently listed as a penalty for breaching electoral law, which it seems to be. From https://www.aec.gov.au/elections/austra ... fences.htm

Nomination offences include making a false or misleading statement on the nomination form, maximum penalty: 12 months imprisonment (Division 137 of the Criminal Code).

The thing I don't get is they have to have citizenship sorted out before they nominate, according to this ruling by the high court. Being that they are at the mercy of how long it takes for the various external governments to process the paperwork, the HC is basically saying they have to know they are going to nominate long before they actually do. Even though I am not a lawyer, it doesn't appear to me to be a very practical application of the "reasonable steps" clause. Putting in an application to renounce citizenship months before nomination would appear to me to be reasonable steps.

I do agree that there are no excuses after the next election. It's just that some people will always be ineligible to stand unless they give up their citizenship long in advance of actually knowing whether they are going to be asked to nominate or not.

Feel it's all quite strange when our head of state is a foreign citizen to begin with. For those with British (Or any Commonwealth citizenship tbh) needs to renounce their allegiance before swearing allegiance to the Queen.

Also has the potential for some countries to sit on the paperwork for years if they want.

Indeed, or countries that have more than enough problems of their own just not having the time or framework to handle such things. I would have thought the "reasonable steps" should count from the request to renounce, not the acknowledgement. The High Court apparently disagrees.

Maybe the AEC/High Court could allow filing the renunciation with them alongside the formal filing, so if it's ever a problem in the future there'll be independent proof of when it was sent? Not being beholden to foreign powers is the point of the rule, so it's not great they can hold paperwork back.

Yeah I agree that ruling that the people who had submitted the forms to have their citizenship repealed was not good enough, was silly.
I'm unsure what happens if a country then simply doesn't process the paperwork.
Might be an easy way for Russia to influence the government here. Issue citizenship to anyone they don't want in and fail to process the renunciation paperwork.

Its probably come up already, but the way the original constitution was written said some like "cannot be a citizen of a foreign power". At the time, the UK was not a "foreign power", so there was nothing odd about the Queen being British. That was only changed in 1986.
Actually, with the Queen being our Queen, is she actually not entitled to Australian citizenship at all? Cos that would be rather comical, to be the Queen of a place you... *just looks it up instead*.
Interesting, apparently the Queen is not a British citizen either. Being Sovereign apparently makes things like citizenship and passports not apply to you.
So basically, our head of state is not a foreign citizen. She isn't a citizen of anywhere, and being our Sovereign means she isn't foreign, she is allowed in at any time.